The first Agrarian Elders Gathering was held in Big Sur two years ago. The event captured the attention of the New York Times, and talented Noel Vietor created a masterful chronicle of the wisdom and ideas shared, which spanned the following topics:

Scale And Quality: How Large Can An Organic Farm Be?

How Small Farmers Survive And Thrive In A Co-Opted Market

Finding The Sweet Spot

The Challenge Of Certifying “Organic”

Regulation: The Burden Of Getting Big

The Limits Of Corporate Funded Scientific Agriculture

Honoring Observation And Intimate Participation With Nature

Is There A Perpetual Agriculture?

The Organic Farm As Organism And Ecosystem

How Monsanto Bought 10,000 Years Of Seed-Saving Power

The Crisis Of Participation

“Too Soon Old & Too Late Smart” – The Challenge Of Retirement

Succession Strategies That Succeed

Giving The Land A Voice

Community Education – A Natural Strength Of Organic Farming

There is great conscious of the critical need to generationally pass along knowledge. Therefore, this year’s Agrarian Gathering was re-constituted to bring together a dozen of the Elders along with a dozen Youngers selected for their leadership qualities from among the next generation of organic farmers.

As preparation for this Agrarian Elders Gathering, the well-known Eliot Coleman of Four Seasons Farm on the coast of Maine, took it upon himself to create and distribute a reading list for Elders to study ahead of time.

Eliot’s collection of pertinent articles and studies is nothing short of stunning. We share with you Eliot’s treasure trove below.

Eliot Coleman’s 2016 Agrarian Elders Reading List

Note: “Some of these articles were included, not because I thought they had merit, (Nathaniel Johnson, Tamar Haspel, and Forbes are all shills for the Dark Side) but because I thought our discussions would be more focused if we were up-to-date on what the other side was saying.”Eliot

One Thought on “Hitting the Books: THE Reading List from Agrarian Elders”

It is important to note that some of these articles were included, not because i thought they had merit, (Nathaniel Johnson, Tamar Haspel, and Forbes are all shills for the Dark Side) but because I thought our discussions would be more focused if we were up-to-date on what the other side was saying.
Eliot